The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur) - Hardcover

Rajaniemi, Hannu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765329492 ISBN 13: 9780765329493

Publisher: Tor Books, 2011

Synopsis

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy- from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur....

The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

The Quantum Thief is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy title.

One of Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of 2011

About this title

About the Author:

Thirty-year-old HANNU RAJANIEMI is from Finland and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he is a director of a think tank providing business services based on advanced math and artificial intelligence. He holds a Ph.D. in string theory and is a member of the same writing group that produced Hal Duncan. He wrote The Quantum Thief in English.

Review:

“The next big thing in hard SF. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am.” ―Charles Stross

“Many an anglophone author would kill to turn out prose half as good as this.... Reminiscent of the work of Alfred Bester, who produced two of the finest American SF books of the 1950s, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.” ―The Financial Times

“A brilliant first novel. The Quantum Thief, like so much of the best space opera of this century, is a prodigy house, where propositions are instant heritage, and arguments are eyeclick.” ―John Clute

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0765329492
• ISBN 13: 9780765329493
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336